The main characters, or at least the most interesting ones, in the series include:

The Goon: a big, burly, taciturn guy with a face
like a hatchet. He wears a green and black striped shirt and a flat cap
pulled down over his eyes, and one side of his face has been heavily
scarred. He likes drinking beer, beating up zombies and people who owe
him money, self-pity, and hitting monsters with oversized wrenches.

Franky: a short, skinny, balding guy with blank
Little Orphan Annie eyes. He's the Goon's right-hand man and likes to
imagine that he's as tough and as hard-boiled as the Goon is. He likes
drinking, chasing skirts, and shouting "KNIFE TO THE EYE!" during
fights.

The Zombie Priest: Short, stooped, unquestionably
evil, and surrounded by zombies. He wears a top hat with a man's
skinned face stuck to it, and is served by a cat with a human face.
He's the man who plagues the Goon and everyone else in town with
zombies, or slackjaws, as well as other magical menaces. He's a
terrible person.

Buzzard: The former sheriff of a small Western
town where the Zombie Priest came as a traveling preacher. The Buzzard
was the only person who didn't fall for the Priest's sermons, and he was
the only person unaffected when the Priest killed everyone in town with
a plague, then raised them as zombies. Enraged, he attacked the Priest,
who attempted to use his necromancy on him -- but instead of turning
him into a zombie, it instead made him a living man with an
unquenchable hunger for the flesh of the undead. Tortured by his
failures and his curse, Buzzard believes that only the Goon can save
everyone from the Priest.

The Little Unholy Bastards: A bunch of damn moppets
who keep making trouble around the neighborhood. They all live at the
McGreg Home For Illegitimate, Wayward and Possibly Homicidal Youth.

Willie Nagel: One of the few slackjaws who can
think and talk normally. He wears a jaunty bowler hat with a flower in
the brim. He's one of the good guys.

Spider: A giant talking spider. He also wears a
jaunty bowler hat. He gets to hang out in Norton's Pub, but he's a crook
and scam artist, and the Goon beats him up pretty often.

Hieronymous Alloy: A mad scientist with metallic
golden skin. He occasionally tries to help the Goon and the public, but
sometimes goes insane and sends robots to attack everyone. He's very
enthusiastic about creamed corn. (But who isn't?)

The Psychic Seal: A seal wearing a turban who
can predict the future. Everyone can understand him, even though he can
only speak in seal barks. He also has a tendency to insult people's
mothers, so the Goon and Franky beat him up a fair bit.

Peaches Valentine: He's a demented fuckwit
wearing diapers and a "Chick Magnet" t-shirt. He hollers nonsensical
stuff and smears his poop all over the place.

Now, as you might suspect at this point, despite the heavy emphasis
on the slackjaws, this is less a horror comic and more an excuse for
insane and offensive humor. This is, of course, in no way a bad thing,
when done skillfully, and Eric Powell is a wonderfully skilled
humorist. Which isn't to say this is high-brow humor -- I already called
it insane and offensive, and I stand by that. But insane and offensive
low-brow humor can be done well (Eric Powell) or it can be done stupidly
(Tosh) -- Powell knows what's funny, and he knows how to make you laugh
hard enough so you ain't embarrassed no more.

Among my favorite funny Goon moments are:

The Goon beating up vampires who've just literally covered themselves in glitter

The Goon and Franky taking a whole issue to brutally mock Marvel and DC Comics

Joey the Ball, a midget crime boss who got his hand stuck in a
bowling ball years ago, so he now has a normal body and one
grotesquely over-muscled arm with a bowling ball stuck to it

The Little Unholy Bastards disguising themselves to get into a
burlesque show and saying, "Hello, I'm a grown man with a mustache
that enjoys watching ladies shake their boobies about. Therefore I would
like one ticket to your burlesque show, please, since I hear you have
lots of boobies shaking about."

The Goon beating up a mule -- because he wanted to make sure she'd
be so beat-up that the scumbag renting her out for deviant purposes
wouldn't be able to make any money off her.

Eric Powell gleefully announcing to the world that he's sponsoring
roller derby teams, burlesque performers, and cage fighters --
including photos of the cage fighter pushing Powell in a swing.

The fact that Powell published an issue entitled "Satan's Sodomy Baby" just to gin up some fake controversy.

And of course, anything featuring Peaches Valentine's poopy diapers or the ridiculous violence dished out on Spider.

It's not all poop jokes and inappropriate laughter. Some of the
stories are far grimmer and more frightening than you may be expecting
-- the Goon has to face off with zombies every day, and sometimes,
something considerably more terrifying shows up. Powell has periodically
shown a political side, too -- the Goon and Franky are both,
incredibly, union men -- a fact which they once used against a villain
-- and one issue focused on a thinly-disguised retelling of the
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911.

And then there's the tragedy. When Powell wants to write a sad
story, he don't hold back. He'll toss a few out during the normal run of
the comic, but you wanna see some amazingly epic tragedy? Go find
Powell's "Chinatown" graphic novel. There are not many comic books as
sad as this one. It doesn't pull on your heartstrings -- it chops
through your heartstrings with a fireaxe and takes out the window and
part of the wall behind it.

There's hope out there for the Goon's fans that he may get his own
Hollywood movie, too. David Fincher and Blur Studio are set to
produce a computer animated film, written by Powell himself. Clancy
Brown has been named to voice the Goon, with Paul Giamatti playing
Franky. The film may be stuck in development hell for the time being
-- funding may be an issue -- but hopes remain fairly high that it'll
eventually be made. For the time being, however, please enjoy
this wonderful trailer.

There's tons of graphic novels and trade paperbacks of "The Goon." Go
hassle your local comic shop about 'em. If they give you any trouble,
give 'em a knife to the eye.